Tuesday August 7, 2007 2:56 pm

Tondon Tidies Up While Observing

Tondon has been “hired” by a 14 floor Tokyo apartment complex as its maintenance man. Built by Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) and Sumitomo, the bot uses an optical communication system to run the building’s elevators and has been designed to sweep, clean, and scrub dirty surfaces both indoors and outside. The next generation of the RFS1 robot, he is also waterproof and features a design to match the Bali-themed decor. Tondon, named after a legenday Balinese snake god, features 4 video cameras and a hard disk so that humans can keep an eye on the little guy while he is also being utilized for surveillance. We call any rent-a-cop who can clean up at the same time deserves Japan’s 2006 Robot of the Year Award bestowed upon him.